Get ready to shake your moneymaker like you never have before with this 10-minute Buti workout. A hybrid of dance and yoga, this increasingly popular Crunch class mixes traditional yoga poses with pulsing and gyrating moves to tone your entire body while raising your heart rate. It's fast-paced, fun, fierce, and feminine. And might even make you blush a little. Press play and get ready to sweat.
Blow off some steam and torch some serious calories with this Cardio Tai Box workout from Crunch. In 10 minutes, you will be dripping with sweat. If you want a longer workout, this class is so fun you will want to do it again. Best of all, you don't need any equipment to do this workout, so no excuses. Press play and get ready to punch your way fit.
If you've been searching for a high-spirited cardio class, BUTI could be your new favorite class. LA-based founder Bizzie Gold created BUTI to be a fierce and feminine workout that combines elements of her favorite ways to get in shape: yoga and CrossFit. Dance, yoga, and plyometrics all meld to create this crazy heart-pumping class.
Even actress Jennifer Love Hewitt is a BUTI believer, which she shares in the latest issue of Shape: "BUTI has given my arms and shoulders definition and helped lift my butt too . . . and even though it's very challenging, it's so much fun!" And after taking Michelle Opperman's class at Crunch, I too am hooked.
The class starts off with a quick warmup and a fast-paced yoga flow. Then it moves through a sequence of common yoga positions (such as Chair, Warrior 1, and Downward Dog). Unlike a traditional yoga flow, instead of holding for a few breaths before moving to the next pose, you hold each position for at least eight breaths, but dancing, gyrating, and pulsing while doing so. This sequencing is broken up with spurts of dancing that help you let loose and kick your heart rate up — by far my favorite part of the class. There was also strength work that included moves like push-ups, burpees, and mountain climbers, all classic conditioning moves — just given a BUTI-ful twist.
Keep reading for my class concerns and where you can take BUTI.
Even with this mild Winter, we've still seen our fair share of snow in the mountains. And while Spring is just around the corner, late-season storms around the country have given us the gift of fresh powder. If you're planning a snowy mountain weekend anytime soon, here's a circuit workout that works your core, lower body, and balance — courtesy of Erick Northrup, a district fitness manager at Crunch and avid skier — to keep in your workout rotation before you head to the slopes.
Get the workout after the break!
With bikini season just around the corner, we can't help but find fit-body inspiration from the stars who dazzled on the red carpet this award season. To help get rid of that extra jiggle under our arms while also learning how to tone our tush, we turned to Crunch trainer Mitch Rice. With these three moves, you'll be waving confidently to your adoring fans and the paparazzi as if you were Cameron Diaz or Viola Davis!
See these bikini-ready exercises after the break!
If the deadlift isn't part of your regular routine, it should be. While the move's name may conjure images of meaty bodybuilders, the exercise is an amazingly effective move for your lower body, especially your glutes, hamstrings, and quads. Not only that, it's great for your core muscles, too. "The act of keeping the core tight while the load is trying to pull you forward is extremely beneficial," says Tim Rich, a personal training manager at Crunch. Basically, the deadlift is a great exercise to get ready for bikini season.
Another reason to love deadlifts? It's the ultimate functional fitness move. "The deadlift is a must-have skill to keep your independence," Tim says. "Proper loading of the spinal column will keep you active and mobile in the later years. You will always have to pick things up for the rest of your life." Regularly doing deadlifts also does wonders for your posture, so if you spend a lot of time at a desk, you should be doing this move.
Ready to add deadlifts to your workout circuit? Read on for tips on how to do a deadlift correctly.
You're probably familiar with doing ab exercises on the floor, an exercise ball, or even on a BOSU, but have you ever made use of the weight bench? Rather than moving to a floor to complete your crunches, try these exercises in between sets of arm, chest, and back work using the bench — you're already there, make use of it.
Expert Crunch trainer Livia Jenvey offers up these five exercises that target all the major muscle groups in your abdomen: the transverse muscles that wrap all the way around the trunk of your body, the obliques or muscles on the side of your abdomen, and the rectus muscles, which run down the center of your belly and are responsible for creating your six-pack.
My Crunch trainer recently introduced me to the assisted pull-up machine, and it might be my new favorite exercise. The machine uses counterbalance weights, which means the higher the weight you set the machine, the easier the exercise becomes. Set the weight to 20 pounds less than your weight, complete three to five reps, and then adjust the weight accordingly. For instance, if you weigh 130 pounds, set the machine to 110 pounds.
Here's how to safely use this machine.
While working out at your gym, you might have passed by thick, heavy white ropes coiled up around a beam, but haven't given them much thought. While it may be intimidating to take up a 20-foot space in the gym, working with battle ropes is not only one of the quickest way to work out all of your muscle groups, slamming 25-pound ropes on the ground is actually quite gratifying.
Crunch trainer Livia Jenvey recommends her clients use battle ropes because they are a fun, quick, and alternative way to work out your arms, back, legs, and especially target the core. Even spending a few minutes working with the ropes will send your heart racing and your muscles aching in a good way. Livia recommends this quick workout for newbies to battle ropes.
Fans of circuit training will love the latest class offering from Crunch Gym: Diesel Motivation. The hour-long class is fast paced, challenging, and, best of all, a total-body workout. Expect to leave sweaty and sore.
If you're not familiar with circuit training, exercises are performed one after the other with no rest in between the moves. In Diesel Motivation, that breaks down to a mix of strength training moves intermixed with sets of high-intensity cardio. For the class, each student needs two sets of dumbbells (both a heavier and lighter set), a Bosu ball, a barbell, and a gliding disc.
Though no class is exactly alike, the same formula is always followed: class starts with a five-minute warmup consisting of light cardio and dynamic stretches followed by the meat of the workout and then a short 10-minute cooldown consisting of deep static stretches. Between the warming up and cooling down, the instructor leads the class through a series of back-to-back strength moves that focus on one area of the body, which is then followed by an intense two-minute burst of cardio (usually 30-second sets of jumping jacks, ice skaters, jump rope, and boxing moves). This intense cycle continues for about 45 minutes; the idea is that by the end of the class, you'll have worked every muscle group of the body. As for the strength training moves, it's about maximizing results — supersets of compound exercises. Some typical moves are lunges with bicep curls, sumo squats with arm raises, and push-ups performed on the Bosu.
See what I think of Diesel Motivation after the break!
